Civic Space:
Questions of Society, History and Politics
to make a new Public Space

Marian Dinneen
0645699
School of Architecture, University of Limerick

Contents
Abstract
Presentation Drawings
Design Ambition/Site Analysis
Schedule of Areas
Bibliography
Appendix: Textiles and Architecture
Appendix: Thesis Essay: Questions of Society, History and Politics to make a new Public Space
Illustration Credits

Acknowledgements

This work was made possible by the encouragement and support of my family throughout my college career. For this I thank them sincerely.
My thanks also to the staff at SAUL particularly fifth year tutors Anna Ryan, Peter Carroll and Merritt Bucholz. I would like to thank Tom Moylan, Rosemarie Webb, Lytle Shaw, and Irenee Schalbert for
their critique and consideration but also their encouragement to read from sources far beyond the discipline of architecture.
Ciaran Treanor and Elaina Hickey must be credited for their help and support in the last desperate days of thesis charrette, as well as Anna Healy, Sinead Stack, Trish Geherty, Emer Egan and Eugene O
Callaghan.
And finally I would like to thank SAUL fifth year class of 2012, from whom I learned much more than I could ever properly credit.

Fig. 1: Drawing of the activity of
the Tahrir Square protests in Egypt
in March 2011. The square became
the focal point for the world for
one week when, in an act of great
democratization, normal citizens
gathered together and overthrew the
brutal dictator.

Abstract
The ambition of my thesis project is to design civic space,
space for civic engagement.
I propose my design for Limerick City, whose governing
structures are being re-evaluated as it is amalgamated
with Limerick County. My vision extends further than
the line between neighbours being razed, but this move
has opened up a conversation about what the new entity
could be.
Taking inspiration from the great Democratisation seen
last year in the Arab Spring, and listening to the various
voices who have identified a crisis in Democracy here
in Europe and Ireland, I focused my thesis on making
spaces for people who are actively involved in their
own governance. The blueprint for Limerickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s new
governing structure has not yet been drawn. I propose
a revitalization of Irish public space, public psyche and
public governance.
The city must change to meet these new needs. There
is potential within the existing fabric. Just as the new
governance will require a close examination of society,
the new architecture I propose has come out of close
examination of the Georgian context of Limerick City.

Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell Street, (originally Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s street) was
designed in 1769 as part of the Christopher Colles plan
for New Town Perry. The Georgian fabric sits on a series
of basements and vaults, built up rather than dug down.
Ground level was approximately 4m below the perceived
ground level today.
By unearthing the vaults which the city is built on,
an entirely different street-scape immerges. New
opportunities for overlooking, overhearing and
interacting are established. Like a Greek agora this space
is traversed daily, it is part of the bustle and business
of everyday city life. This will be the home for the
alternative local government. Its public face is dissolved
into the street into an aggregation of rooms rather than
one institutional building.
By taking into account climatic concerns and providing
shelter the street becomes a room for 100,000 people,
but mass democracy does not (and should not) need to
be massive...
The street is robust enough to include rooms at cross
roads, big enough for 500 people. Moving into the
buildings that line the street, that hold the street and
service it with action and purpose, there is scope for
rooms for 50-100 people. The former underground coal
vaults are re-imagined to become meeting rooms for
10 people, or can house public conveniences that are

vital for servicing enriched public life. The emphases is
on spaces for citizenship, spaces to gather and discuss
spaces to argue and debate; but also to celebrate and
take pride in shared identity.

I cannot design the new society, but I can design
the spaces they will inhabit. The architecture must
be accessible and engage all of society. Function
dictates where people will go, but it is the space, the
architecture, that dictates how they feel in that place.
The architecture I propose here must always be inviting,
must always strive to extend what is public and must
embody the ideals of democracy.

Project Drawings

Fig. 2: Map of Ireland, highlighting
the amalgamating local authorities of
Limerick City and County, and locating their respective civic offices.
Fig. 3: Birds eye view of the proposed
new home for local governance, in
Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell St.
Fig: 4: Perspective view showing the
inhabiation of the former coal storage vaults and the potiential for green
space on what was previously build
ground.

Civic Space:
Dissolving the Public function of Local Government into the Street.

The plan of the Georgian town house is reimagined, now that it has two front doors.

This particular plot is a house for the
community outreach of local government,
bringing the vibrance of limericks various
neighbourhoods into the city.

The hard surface basement floor grounds the
building, its surface continues out into the 3m
plot boundary to the front, and also into a light
giving extension to the rear.

Pylon carries services.
It is an extension of the street, whose utility
includes drainage, telecommunication and
electricity.
Water from the roof is drained off through the
pylons and so this becomes a point for water
fountain.
Power is carried too the roof to be used for
lighting or projecting.

Leonards

Fig. 5: Presentation board layout, as
presented to examiners on May 16,
2012

The plan of the Georgian town house is reimagined, now that it has two front doors.

This particular plot is a house for the community
outreach of local government, bringing the
vibrance of limericks various neighbourhoods
into the city.

Pylon carries services.
It is an extension of the street, whose utility includes
drainage, telecommunication and electricity.

The hard surface basement floor grounds the
building, its surface continues out into the 3m
plot boundary to the front, and also into a light
giving extension to the rear.

Water from the roof is drained off through the pylons and so
this becomes a point for water fountain.
Power is carried too the roof to be used for lighting or
projecting.

Previous page, Fig. 6: 3D drawings
looking closely a the construction of
the Georgian street-scape including
my proposal for its revitalisation.
This page, Fig. 7: Perspective view of
the corner of Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell St and Cecil
St, shown as a space for informal
gathering, space to discuss and debate,
inspired by the agoras of the ancients.

Fig. 8: Conceptual site plan that aimed
to convey my idea of governance being
pulled from institutional buildings into
the street.King John’s Castle, Limerick
City Hall, St Mary’s Cathedral can be
seen to the North of the plan, stitches
are drawn from these buildings along
O’Connell St and into the rooms for
civic engagement which line it.

Fig. 9-11: Rooms for specific interest group.1
Fig. 9:Environmental Section looking
at air movement through the building
and along the street.
1
By interest group I mean a group that
is small but well organised, more effective than the ideal of mass democracy.
(A group concerned with those functions
that do not perform properly was private
interests but are a social necessity. I am
thinking in terms of public transport but
the principle holds true for care services,
education, policing etc)

Fig. 10:Floor plans
Note the circulation spatial layout engage with the street, both at street level
and below street level, there is also an
emphases on transprency (all spaces
are overlooked) and accessibitity. Lessons are learned from the Georgian
context of the city; pushing services to
the party wall etc.
Fig. 11:Perspective taken outside this
building, showing the street as a room
for mass democracy, for celebration or
consternation.

Previous page, Fig. 12: Hand drawn
site plan showing the inhabitation of
the street, including public rooms,
those propsed to house functions laid
out in the design, but also churches,
public houses (particularly the White
House known for its Poetry) and other
existing public rooms
This page, Fig. 13: Photographs of
models which were included in presentation.

Design Ambition
I cannot design a new society; I can however imagine
that new society and design the sort of spaces they
would need to serve the more civilly engaged and
socially responsible citizens.
O Connell St (originally Georgeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s street) was designed
in 1769 as part of the Christopher Colles plan for New
Town Perry (see maps on far right). It was built to be the
main arterial route of the New Town, connecting the Old
Town, new customs house and extending out trough the
grid. At 72 feet it is the widest street in the grid, running
along the line that had previously been the route south
to Adare (as seen in the William Eyres map of 1752)
It was built to be elegant and extensive, for gossip,
display promenade and fresh air. This was all made
possible by the sewer system that underpins the city.
The Georgian fabric sits on a series of basements and
vaults, built up rather than dug down. Ground level was
approximately 4m below the perceived ground level
today.
Setting my project among these vaults, I propose to
dissolve the public and often ceremonial forms of local
government into the street.

Like a Greek agora this space is traversed daily, it is part
of the bustle and business of everyday city life. The
street becomes a gallery, a space to overlook the public
activity.
The climate in Limerick does not inspire year round
vibrant street use. Particularly the 1000-1200mm of
rainfall every year is a deterrent for citizens to go into
town to gather and engage civilly. With this in mind I
propose to roof the street, not in full but at strategic
points. This will help change peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s perception of the
street, making it more of a room.
There are three strategic points of intervention along
the street. These were informed by analysis of current
functions, density of footfall and historical precedent.

Historical Maps
Fig. 14: William Eyres Map of Limerick City from 1752. Highlighted, and
pulled out in detail below, is the ‘Road
to Adhair’ which preceded O’Connell
St, the typography indicated in the
map implies that the road divided the
low-lying flood land from the higher
ground.
Fig. 15: Christopher Colles proposal for New Town Perry from 1769.
O’Connell St is drawn to connect into
the existing city, pass the Custom
House and extend into the grid. Its
importance is highlighted by the two
circular breaks in the grid that straddle
the street, at William St and Mallow St.

Fig. 16: Plot use Map

Fig. 17: Nolli style plan of Limerickâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s
Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell St. showing public buildings
such as schools, theatres, churches,
courthouses, museums as well as key
buildings that I image my project
spreading into.

The question remains, why site my
project in Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell Street.
This drawing was the genesis of the
idea
Fig: 18: Drawing of the connection
from Limerick City Civic offices to
Limerick County Civic Offices, as well
as the many public buildings between
them.

As well as being the arterial route
between the existing neighbouring
authorities, O’Connell St is a focal point,
an identifier, for the entire county and
region.
Fig 19 & 20: The St Patricks day parade,
which runs the length of O’Connell St
is a day when communities show their
wares as it were and bring a vibrancy
to the city.
Fig. 21: Map of parishes of Limerick
City, these divisions inform worship
in the city but also primary schools,
secondary schools, Sports clubs and
community services.
Fig. 22: Map of the electoral divisions
across the city
Fig. 23: Sketch of the various
neighbourshoods that make up the city,
these are all linked into the city
These community structures breed a
healthy competition within the city,
that comes to the fore on celebration
days such as St Patricks day or match
day.
This competitiveness brings a richness
to the city, it should not be seen as
devisive. The entire city, infact the entire
region, comes together to support the
Munster Rugby Team on match day
Fig 25 & 26 Match day O’Connell
St, where the entireregion gathers to
celebrate the shared identity of Munster
Rugby.
This is done on O’Connell St, because as
the card Model (Fig. 24) shows there is
a strong connection between the street
and its hinterland. This in not a space
just for the immediate neighbours.
This space exists in the consciousness
of the entire region.

Fig. 27: Drawing of the typical footfall
across and along Oâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Connell St.

Fig. 28: O’Connell St re-imagined
with Raphael’s ‘The school of Athens’,
showing the street as a room for
discussion and debate; the sort of
engaged democracy that the ancient
Greeks were famous for.
Fig. 29: Sketch showing the vaulted
structure of the street opened up with
the existing street becoming a gallery
to the activity below
Fig. 30: Collage of a subterranean
discursive forum. The crowd in the
foreground are referenced from an
image of Ireland’s first independent
assembly of Dail Eireann, from May
1921.
Fig. 31: Sketch imaging the view from
under the vaulted street into the new
discursive forum

Schedule of Areas
Civic Discursive Forum
500

Facilities to accommodate celebrations, protests and everything
in between

1
By interest group I mean a group that is small but well organised,
more effective than the ideal of mass democracy. (A group concerned
with those functions that do not perform properly was private interests
but are a social necessity. I am thinking in terms of public transport
but the principle holds true for care services, education, policing etc)

1675

Bibliography

By hand : the use of craft in contemporary art ed.
Shu Hung and Joseph Magliar. (New York : Princeton
Architectural Press, 2010)

Fukuyama, Francis “The End of history” The National
Interest. 1989 accessed 30 September http://www.
wesjones.com/eoh.htm

My initial thesis intent was a vague altruistic idea
of making a new public space for a new public.
From reading the newspapers I feel that there is a
need to address the new public, particularly here
in Ireland. It seems to me that we are in the midst
of an identity crisis. From the dust of the economic
crash of late 2008, emerge a people who were not
only financially bankrupt, but morally and politically
bankrupt, with nothing to believe in or fight for. The
more I read the more politicised I have become, and
it has become apparent to me that a new society
must emerge in the coming years. Implicit in the
design process is imagining the future; I felt it would
be remiss of me not to bring my political concerns
to the table when doing just that.

Fig. 34&35:
‘Thesis object’ two pieces of copper wire knitted together in
differing ways. An alagorical idea of society and its cohesion,
the ties that keep it together.

“To see what is in from of one’s own eyes is a constant
struggle”

George Orwell

We are where we are..?
We have lived through a period of National economic
success; in the decade from the late 1990’s to 2008
Ireland had a booming economy. As though in a dream;
we were high on growth, stability, certainty, and the
illusion of indefinite economic improvement. The dream
is now over and we have woken up to a harsh reality of
debt and austerity and above all else, uncertainty. There
has been a sea change in how we live, but we have yet
to see a change in the priorities and values to the fore in
decision making. The financial difficulty here in Ireland
is echoed throughout Europe and the USA. This is the
condition described in Tony Judt’s writing from 2010, Ill
fares the Land.
For the last thirty years we have made a virtue
out of the pursuit of material self interest.
When asking ourselves whether we support a
proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it
good or bad? Instead we inquire: Is it efficient?
Is it productive? Would it benefit gross domestic
product? Will it contribute to growth? This
propensity to avoid moral considerations, to
restrict ourselves to issues of profit and loss—
economic questions in the narrowest sense—is
not an instinctive human condition.1

Judt is not alone in his critique of the economic and
political condition of the recent past. In Empire, their
book from 2000, Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri cast
a very critical eye on the global system that we find
ourselves in to this day. They describe a post-modern
economy, which operates without any territorial
boundary, without any moral restraint2. The historical
reference of an empire is a territory governed by one
body but incorporating several cultures or ethnic
groups3. The Empire described by Hardt and Negri
abuses time and history, manipulating them to its own
end;
Empire exhausts historical time and suspends
history, and summons the past and future within
its own ethical order, in other words; Empire
presents its order as permanent, eternal, and
necessary.4
This suspension of history explains why it is difficult
to imagine a society free from the pressures of the
‘empire’, the problem is a discursive one; we simply do
not know how to talk about these things any more. As I
have previously stated, we are too concerned with the
dialogue of profit and loss that we have failed to engage
in proper critical thinking.
There is a democratic crisis. This crisis is tied into the
economic system that is in play but the challenge is

1. Tony Judt, Ill Fears the Land (London. Allen Lane, 2010) p9

more to do with governance than economics. The
economic situation has highlighted democracies struggle
to enforce the rule of law, to enforce laws (here I am
particularly thinking of financial regulation). There is
public disaffection in democracy. Democracy is not just
about being elected, it is about sitting under the rule
of law and seeing that such laws are abided by5. This is
where democracy is seen to have failed (thinking here of
the overthrow of democracies in both Greece and Italy in
favour of Technocracies because of democracies failure
to abide by their own laws.)

2. Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri,
Empire (London. Harvard University
Press 2001) p15
3. Hardt and Negri take their language
most notably from social theorist Max
Weber who responded to the events of his
time; the second half of the nineteenth
century. Weber recognised his was a
time of change in the forms of empire.
Empire was creating transitions, the
response to which was dominated by the
technocratic thinking. Weber proposed
a commitment to rationality as the
key building block of the future. This
is todays empire that Hardt and Negeri
describe in their writing. They proclaim
that we have arrived at widespread
acceptance by policy makers that
markets are rational. This, on occasion,
leads, in the extreme, to the suggestion
that it is people who are irrational, the
markets rational. (Micheal D Higgins
‘Of Public Intellectuals, Universities
and the Democratic Crisis’ 21 Feburary
2012, London School of Economics)

The discourse is absent and the people are alienated.
I would like to think that this state of affairs is changing,
that the crisis is being addressed. This is borne out in the
Occupy Movement, a global protest movement which is
primarily directed against economic and social inequality.
People are claiming their democratic right to protest and
highlighting the undemocratic response to the financial
crisis).In Irish politics it is heartening to hear our newly
elected president, Michael D Higgins, acknowledge
the change that must happen in our society. In his
inauguration speech he encouraged us
To close the chapter on that which has failed,
that which was not the best version of ourselves
as a people, and open a new chapter based on
a different version of our Irishness (this) will

Fig. 36: Grey card model of Zuccotti
Park, New York, the site of the Occpy
Wall St protests of late 2011

5. Ngaire Woods: ‘Democracy is not
just about being elected’ The Guardian
13 April 2012 available at
http://www.guardian.co.uk/
politics/video/2012/apr/13/
ngaire-woods-democracy-lawvideo?INTCMP=SRCH

require a transition in our political thinking, in
our view of the public world, in our institutions,
and, most difficult of all, in our consciousness.6
With so many voices calling for change the future will
have to belong to a different system. I do not know the
economics of such a system but I am sure that there is a
way to live in a more moral society where decisions are
made based on critical social thinking rather than purely
fiscal determination.

A look to a historical precedent for the
space and society I imagine
I previously quoted Tony Judt’s assertion that the neo
liberal profit orientated view of society is not indicative
of the human condition7. In the imagined future of my
thesis proposal I would like to return to values closer to
‘the human condition’. Is there a part of our psyche that
wants to engage in civic life? Is there a part of our nature
that needs to be part of something bigger than one’sself?
Fig. 37: Giovanni Mansueti painting
from 1494 which shows the civil and
ceremonial potiential of public space
Fig. 38: Sketch of the public/private
dynamic described by Arendt

To shed light on these questions I look to the writing of
Hannah Arendt in The Human Condition. Arendt explores
these questions, and in doing so explains a spatial

precedent for how we can collect and engage in civic life.
Arendt clarifies ‘public’ as “the world in itself, in so far
as it is common to all of us and distinguished from our
privately owned place in it.” (see sketch)8 This gives us a
feel for the vast nature of public space, it defies simple
definition. What is defined here is what public is not.
In conventional terms we could say that public space
is streets, parks and squares. This limits our potential
to engage with ‘the world’ and the vast possibilities we
have to inhabit it together.
She explains the importance of public space, elaborating
on how it is used by society not merely in the immediate
time frame (writing in 1958) but into the future. When
Arendt describes a space held in common she is not
merely referring to the people around us now, but the
greater idea of society, all those past and all those into
the future. As she writes,
it is what we have in common not only with those
who live with us, but also with those who were
here before and with those who will come after.9
Here Arendt is making particular reference to the
ancient Greeks. Space for the public (political assembly)
was vitally important to Greek society. The site of that
assembly is the Pynx; a hill in the centre of the city (see
sketch). This was where citizens of the various demes
would assemble and listen as laws were discussed in the
forum. The discussion took place between Demagogues,

representatives of the various demes10. This was a hugely
important aspect of life in Ancient Greece. The polis was
not Athens, it was the Athenians.
The polis, properly speaking is not the city state
in its physical location it is the organisation of
people as it arises out of acting and speaking
together, and its true space lies between people
living together for this purpose, no matter where
they happen to be.11
The importance of the Pynx cannot be understated. This
was the platform for speech and action ‘word and deed’.
The Greeks saw a permanence in these things, they had
a power to transcend time. This space was the most
important in the city;
for the polis was for the Greeks ... their guarantee
against the futility of individual life, the space
protected against this futility and reserved for
relative performance.12
Looking to the relatively recent past I would like to
contrast Arendt’s profound description of Greek life and the ‘futility of individual life,’ it proposes – with a
statement from Margaret Thatcher from the 1980s;
There is no such thing as society. There are
individual men and women, and there are
families. And no government can do anything
except through people, and people must look to
themselves first.13

7. Judt explains the genesis of the
political thinking of the past 30 years
was borne out of the Chicago School
of economic thinking, where the terms
‘free market’, ‘open society’, and ‘creative
destructive economy were coined.
The grandfathers of the movement
were five men of Austrian extraction;
Ludwig von Mises, Friedrich Hayek,
Joseph Schumpeter, Karl Popper, and
Peter Drucker. All five saw the downfall
of their native country in the interwar
years as it fell from a liberal society with
state owned services and collectivized
economy, to fascism under the Nazis.
As a result they strongly believed that;
if the state was held at a safe distance
from economists, then extremists of
right and left alike would be kept at bay.
This economic thinking was reactionary
and not born out of the centuries we
have lived together as society.

6. In further writing I look back on our
Irishness and pick out various tropes
that have been used to describe Ireland
and its people, some being more
successful than others in how they have
been digested by the public.
Micheal D Higgins inaugeration speech
accessed November 14 http://www.rte.
ie/news/2011/1111/higgins_speech.
html

14. Hannah Arendt, The Human
Condition (Chicago. University of
Chicago Press, 1958) p201
15. Ibid., 207
16. Richard Sennett, The Fall of Public
Man (London : Penguin, 1986) p3-4
17. In terms of public space, these
protests are interesting in the publicness of the spaces occupied. In Wall
St, New York, protesters inhabited
Zuccotti Park, a publicly accessible
park, but owned by a private company,
Brookfield Office Properties. The
municipalities do not own the park and
therefore could remove the protesters
(despite wanting to). The owners
equally could not remove the protesters
– for months – because, as I mentioned
previously, it is agreed that the park be
publicly accessible 24 hours a day. The
park was finally cleared on the grounds
that the protesters were preventing
the larger public from freely accessing
the park. The questionable logic has
uprooted the protesters and highlights
the political wrangling that is implicit
in public space as space for appearances
(to use Arendt’s terminology). The
public issue is not one of ownership,
not boundary, not necessarily ideology
(as there are mixed ideological views on
the part of the protesters), the issue is
power. As Arendt and Sennett describe,
space for assembly gives power to the
crowd. Those who hold the power
at the moment do not wish to see it
relinquished and so the assembly is
broken up.
Zuccotti Park wikipedia, accessed
October 30, 2011 http://en.wikipedia.
org/wiki/ Zuccotti_Park

These two contradictory statements show the rupture
that Judt alluded to. On the one hand we have centuries
of collective organisation where we negotiated with
one another and engaged with society and had a civic
responsibility greater than ourselves. On the other hand
this self serving and small idea of our potential as a
society. The past thirty years of economic high jinks are
directly linked to the sort of social policy described by
Thatcher. I would like to see an end to such thinking and
a return to the bigger responsibilities outlined by Arendt.
In so doing, I look further into the historical precedent
laid down in The Human Condition. As public space is
space that we inhabit together, there are inevitably
issues about regulation and importantly power. Where
there is a density of people there is power; as Arendt
writes;
The only indispensable material factor in the
generation of power is the living together of
people. Only where men live so close together that
the possibilities of action are always present can
power remain with them.14
Space is needed for people to claim that power; space
for society to collect together to protest, to revolt,
or even to celebrate (see Fig. 5). Arendt goes on to
describe this space as, ‘the public realm and space for
appearance.”15

Another important assembly from the ancients is the
Res Publica (the Roman era). In his 1986 writings on
the state of public engagement, The Fall of Public Man,
Richard Sennett writes;
A res publica stands in general for those bonds of
association and mutual commitment which exist
between people who are not joined together
by ties of family or intimate association; it is the
bond of a crowd, of a “people”, of a polity, rather
than the bonds of family or friends. As in Roman
times, participation in the res publica today is
most often a matter of going along, and the
forums for this public life, like the city, are in a
state of decay.16
It is no coincidence that Sennett’s dismay at public
engagement is concurrent with Margaret Thatcher’s
description of society. I like to think that era of civic
irresponsibility is behind us. I would like to assert we
are currently in the midst of a reinvigoration of sorts
in public engagement. The Occupy Protests show
an appetite to engage with an issue (global financial
inequality) and collect together and demand a change in
the way things are done.17
If the future is to be different, then the integrity of public
space - as space for assembly - is vital.

The language of making a new public
space
Looking to see a changed and revitalised inhabitation of
public space calls for a changed description and physical
change to the spaces we have today. Again I look to
the ancients, to Greece; the home of public political
engagement, to bring some of that sensibility to the
making of space. What considerations were brought to
bear in the making of their cities? What have we possibly
forgotten from those times?
Integral to the Greek city was the idea of kosmos,
which was an ancient belief and ordering system. The
kosmos was order (as opposed to chaos) and civility
(as opposed to barbarism). It inspired the ordering of
men into democracy and the ordering of thoughts into
philosophy. In Socrates’ Ancestor Indra Kagis McEwen
draws connections between the ordered kosmos and
the ordering of Greek craft, particularly architecture.
McEwen recognises that a well established discourse
draws parallels between the columns of the Greek
temple and the people collected around it18, but she
offers a different reading of the form of the building.
McEwan draws on the importance of craft to the
ancients “Craft, techné ... ‘making things visible’ allows
for the discovery of kosmos by making it visible.”19

Bringing this to bear, she draws together the rhythm of
streets; dance; oars; ribs of boats; woven fabric and the
columns around the temple, all are crafted to form an
expression of the ordered world and praise for divinity.
For McEwen the crafting of textiles, the interweaving
of warp and woof at right angles, inspires the order of
the gridded streets and the distinctive exterior columns
of the Greek temples. She goes on to claim that the
expression of ancient Greek urbanism is an expression of
the loom, “making visible the loom, or looms, that wove
the city.”20 Although speaking figuratively, she goes on to
cite Vitruvius who explains how the first builders “wove
their walls” around the post and beam frame.21
The connection between textiles and architecture is
not only a fascination of Indra McEwen. It is thoroughly
described in the 1860 treatise Style in the technical
and tectonic acts or practical aesthetics by Gottfried
Semper, where this relationship is explored in great
detail. Semper defines the essence of architecture as
its covering layer rather than its material structure.
This definition involves a fundamental transformation
of the account of the origin of architecture. Rather
than looking at the figurative connections between the
Greeks crafting fabric and crafting walls, Semper goes
further back in history to man’s first primitive built
environments. Semper declares that the “beginning of

building coincides with the beginning of textiles.”22 In
early civilization, woven textiles were used to enclose
the interior space. These were hung from a frame that
fulfilled the structural and practical needs of sheltering.
Where tradition discourse would claim that the
structural scaffold was the architecture, Semper argues
that it is the fabric that divides the space and so makes
the architecture.
Under Semper’s argument, the story of architecture
is no longer one of naked structures gradually
dressed with ornament, “Rather, it was with all the
simplicity of its basic forms highly decorated ... from
the start.”23According to him, the textiles were later
conceived as stylistic, first applied to the floor design of
a building, and then their motifs were transformed to
dress the building’s physical structure24. The scaffolds
used to support the draperies that would enclose and
divide the space had nothing to do with the initial spatial
concept of the building.
For Semper, the idea of the wall evolved through a
sequence of spatial enclosures; primitive screen or
woven-matt, then metal sheathing, and eventually
carpets whose colourful images were applied to the
surface of masonry building to evoke a sentiment of
monumentality. Hanging carpets remained the true
walls, the visible boundaries of space. The often solid

18. Vitruvius The Ten Books on
Architecture

walls behind were necessary for reasons that had
nothing to do with the creation of space; they were
needed for security, for supporting a load, for their
permanence and so on25.

We should take lessons from these readings of early
architecture. McEwen and Semper describe architecture
in different terms to the traditional discourse. Through
elaborating on this different sensibility about space
making we can make new architecture that meets the
needs of the new publically engaged society that I
envision for the future.

25. This relationship between architecture and textiles is further discussed
and illustrated in the appendix.

Fig. 41: Detail of sewn drawing of
Limerick City

Science fiction and the imagining of
new worlds
Science fiction readers are like swimmers
in an unfamiliar beach searching for ways to negotiate the
unseen currents and riptides

Tom Moylan - Untainted Scraps of Sky

In his writings on Entropy and new monuments, Robert
Smithson writes; ‘Memories have a way of trapping ones
notion of the future and packing it in a brittle series
of mental prisons.’ He further discusses the process
of looking back as a means to help see forward as, ‘a
double perspective of past and future that follows a
projection that vanished into a non-existent present’26.
I pull out these lines to highlight my reticence at the
prospect of challenging time and imagining a new future.
How do I make a proposal for this world that is in such
flux and uncertainty? As Smithson rightly points out,
there is a chasm between past and future, we can never
accurately predict the future, but we must design it.
Setting my design in the context of a political future that
has not happened yet is murky water. To help clarify the
process of imagining a new and different future I look
to works of science fiction, and science fiction theory,
where predicting new futures is a matter of course.
Science fiction by its nature is making a comment on
the time in which it is written more so than the time it is

written about27. This is what I aim to do with my project.
Taking the guides laid down by science fiction theory,
particularly that of Tom Moylan in his writing on Scraps
of Untainted Sky, there are a number of ways to ensure a
convincing future vision.
The aesthetic goal of science fiction, as opposed
to realistic fiction, consists in creating a remote,
estranged and yet intelligible alternative world.28
The aesthetic in question is linked to the Gestalt29 and a
sort of thinking that is beyond the merely conscious and
the cognitive.
Science fiction is often fantasy (although not exclusively);
its unfamiliar context disassociates the reader and allows
for the breakdown of what we see as constants, the
laws of physics, biology and other sciences. Although SF
can do that, the higher power it has is how it manages
to capture something of our natural awe at the fact
that the universe exists at all30 . There is a power in this
science fiction, and this power - harnessing this awe - is
the aspect of SF I want to bring to my project. These are
cognitive matters; interpretational ideas. Linking this to
‘architectural’ thinking, and the power that architecture
can equally have in making people aware of the wonder
of the world, I consider Italo Calvino’s writing in Invisible
Cities, and Kevin Lynch in The Image of the City. These
works are concerned with spaces – their perception –
their sense – the memory of them – the image of them,
and story of them we carry around with us31.

Taking Lynch’s insights32, ‘urban alienation is directly
proportional to the mental unmappability of local
cityscapes’, Fredrick Jameson – American literature
critic - suggests that a ‘mental map’ of city space can be
drawn and layered with that mental map of the social
and global contexts we all carry around in our heads in
various forms5. Since the incapacity to map is as crippling
to collective political experience as it is to any displaced
individual, it follows that an aesthetic of conscious and
unconscious representations can accordingly be traced,
analysed, interpreted - made use of6. Jameson asserts
that science fiction can be the form of this unmappable
aesthetic. The inevitable example of this unmappability
is Los Angeles, which is marked by its lack of a down
town monument, lack of mental icon. Jameson relates
the ‘quintessential postmodern place, Los Angeles’, to
Foucault’s ‘carieral city’ of cells ranks, and enclosures35.
Indeed Los Angeles is the quintessential science fiction
city, visualised in Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, and as
such engrained on the psyche. Mike Davis discusses this
vision of LA in his essay Beyond Blade Runner. Davis’ LA
is marked by a grey expanse, gated communities, and
an obsession with personal security, ghettos of crippling
poverty and social exclusion.
If we continue to allow our cities to degenerate
into criminalised Third Worlds, all the ingenious
security technology past, present and future will
not safe guard the anxious middle class36

These are problems of social capital. In his writings on
‘Junkspace’, Rem Koolhaas makes use of a lot of the
ploys I have referenced in terms of sci-fi as descriptive
tool. Science fiction is a critique on the present, set in
the future. Koolhaas sets Junkspace in the continuous
present, by doing so he is casting a critical eye on the
present as well as a view of the future.
Junkspace is the sum total of our current
achievements; we have built more than did all
previous generations put together, but somehow
these do not register on the same scale.37
Koolhass describes the world with a level of irrealism38
Junkspace is body double of space, a territory
of impaired expectation, reduced earnestness.
Junkspace is the Bermuda Triangle of space, an
abandoned Petri dish.39
Junkspace is where we find ourselves today.
Because it costs money, is no longer free,
conditioned space inevitable becomes conditional
space; sooner or later all conditional space turns
into Junkspace.40
Koolhaas does not propose a cheery alternative to
Junkspace, it is self-perpetuating. The space described is
a symptom of the politics I described at the beginning of

26. Robert Smithson, Entropy and New
Monuments in The Collected Writings
of Robert Smithson ed. Jack Flam
(Berkeley, Calif.; London : University
of California Press, 1996) p11
27. Tom
4/10/11

Moylan,

Conversation

28. Angenot 10 quoted in Tom Moylan,
Scraps of the untainted sky : science
fiction, utopia, dystopia (Boulder, Colo.
: Westview, 2000) p50
29. Gestalt is when we look at an image,
we see a figure, and then when we focus
on a different spot on an image, we see
a quite different figure.
Margaret Antwood “The Road to
Utopia” in The Guardian 14 October
2011
30. Margaret Antwood “The Road to
Utopia” in The Guardian 14 October
2011
31. Italo Calvine Invisible Cities ;
translated from the Italian by William
Weaver. (London: Vintage, 2002)
Kevin Lynch The image of the city
(Cambridge [Mass.] : MIT Press, 1960)
32. Kevin Lynch The image of the city
(Cambridge [Mass.] : MIT Press, 1960)
33. Kevin Lynch The image of the city
(Cambridge [Mass.] : MIT Press, 1960)
34. Fredrick Jameson, Cognative Mapping
35. Ibid

36. Like Sennett’s description of Rome,
I feel that this description by Davis is
connected to the political/economic
policies of the time. Decisions based
on small personal fear, as opposed
to greater social responsibility to
make conditions better for all classes,
resulting in the ghettoisation of large
cities like LA.
Mike Davis Beyond Blade runner : urban
control : the ecology of fear (Westfield,
N.J. : Open Media, 1992)
37. Rem Koolhaas. ‘Junkspace’ October,
Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002),
pp. 176
38. The worlds constructed in science
fiction must be properly ‘irrealistic’,
delivering an alternative world that is
a totalising break from the empirical
world. For all that the ‘irrealism’ it will
have be realistic enough to be knowable,
to be consistent and believable. Tom
Moylan, Scraps of the untainted sky :
science fiction, utopia, dystopia (Boulder,
Colo. : Westview, 2000) p 52
39. Rem Koolhaas. ‘Junkspace’ October,
Vol. 100, Obsolescence. (Spring, 2002),
pp. 176
40. Ibid.

41. Henri Lefebvre. The Production of
Space (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1991)
42. Ibid.
43. It is important not to confust
the space of the revolution with the
revolutionised space.
44. Henri Lefebvre. The Production of
Space (Oxford. Basil Blackwell, 1991)

the essay. Reading the description of the dytopic black
hole that is Junkspace I am compelled to yell ‘stop’. In
my alternate imagined future, where political and social
ethos is changed, I see an end to the space described by
Koolhaas.

The idea of a revolutionised space, a different attitude
to space than we have today brings to mind Henri
Lefebvre’s, 1974 treatise; The Production of Space. An
interesting assertion from Lefebvre is that ‘a revolution
that does not produce a new space has not realised its
full potential.’41 When a society revolutionises itself,
a new spatial paradigm is created42. There is a great
deal of freedom in this idea. Through the imagined
revolutionised society I envision for my thesis, the
more socially conscious and engaged society, can
enjoy a new spatial condition43. I am free to design for
that revolution, without the constraint of the dytopic
Junkspace vision we see of the continuous present
described by Koolhaas. Lefebvre’s words could be a
description of the ambition of my project...
seeking a way towards a different space of
different mode of (social) life and of a new
mode of production. This straddles the breach

between science and utopia, reality and identity,
conceived and lived. It aspires to surmount
these oppositions by exploring the dialectic
relationship between ‘possible’ and ‘impossible’
and this both objectivity and subjectivity.44

Site; Ireland, a duality for a rich
identity.
...think of Seurat in the 1880s, keeping silent about politics,
in spite of the anarchism of his friends, staking his claim to
artistic precedence with all the pedantry of a later avantgarde; but producing the Grande-Jatte or the Chahut, images
of joyless entertainment, cardboard pleasures, organised and
frozen: pictures of fashion, and thus the places where public
and private life intersect.
This was the problem in fact: to discover the point at which
public and private intersect, and thus to be able to attack
one by depicting the other. The artist had to begin, so it
seemed, with an image of private life, since the forms of
public existence were too chaotic or corrupt or windblown
for depiction...So it ought to be possible for private imagery
to take on a public force, to hurt or encourage as much as a
speech from the rostrum.

TJ Clarke - The Absolute Bourgeouis

In my introductory outline I quoted our newly elected
President Michael D Higgins, who called for a new
Irishness. Like President Higgins, I see a need to re-cast
how we see ourselves. Through my thesis project I hope
to bring a new space to the fore for that new Irishness, a
space for citizenship, for active engagement in civil and
social life, and an understanding of the possibilities of
public cohesion.
Taking insights from science fiction; the power to think
about all of the alternative possibilities of evolution
and not merely be consumed by a sense of inevitability

and status quo, I cast a critical eye over our idea of
‘Irishness’.I feel I must look back, to see where we are
now; based on where we saw ourselves before. What
do we think of when we think of our nation? What is
the cognitive image we have of ourselves? What does
this have to do with architecture?5 In my opinion it has
everything to do with architecture, and everything to do
with how I can go about making a piece of architecture
for the public in Ireland. I aim to explore the image of
Ireland we carry around with us, and how that image
was constructed. Through understanding this image, or
identity, I hope to make an architecture that is holistic
and relevant to this society.
I believe that at the current point in time we are unsure
of our identity. What way do we represent ourselves to
ourselves? We no longer have a unifying sense of self.
The boom time (described in a previous section of this
essay) saw a discursive shift in terms of the aesthetic of
Ireland (Fig. 10&11). That aesthetic no longer holds true.
What preceded them? Writing in his Autobiographies,
W.B. Yeats says
A young man in Ireland meets only crude,
impersonal things that make him like others.
One cannot discuss his ideas or his ideals for he
has none. He has not the beginning of aesthetic
culture46

45. Kevin Lynches The Image of the City
he proposes a ‘cognitive map’ of the city;
he argues that we carry around with us
in our heads a social, local and global
image of the city as we experience it.
Fredrick Jameson took these ideas and
elaborated them in his writings on
Cognitive Mapping, he proposes a new
aesthetic built from a cognitive map
but more synchronized and crystallized
than the dialectic described in Lynch.
Aldo Rossi also discussed the cerebral
existence of the city, in his writings,
The Architecture and the City; he argues
that the city exists in the memory of its
people. It has in itself a spirit of place (or
as Rossi says, locus) this is felt by people
and informs their perception of the city.
The making of architecture ultimately
the making of their perception of city.
46.WB Yeats Autobiographies (London :
Macmilen) 1955 cited in Declan Kiberd
‘Introduction’ Tracings Vol. 1 UCD
School of Architecture 2000

Fig. 42 & 43: Image used to sell an
apartment complex in Dublin in 2008,
which worked, selling out the complex
off the plans. This is the images of Irishness of the early twenty first century
Fig. 44: Lady Lavery, as painted by Sir
John Lavery and seen on the punt.
Fig 45: â&#x20AC;&#x2DC;Woman Setting out Weftâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; from
Craft Council of Ireland 2011 exhibition
- Modern Languages

Perhaps it is too easy to blame our “post-colonial” past
but that is backed up by some of the foremost social
theorists of the nineteenth century. In a letter to Karl
Marx from the late 1840s Fredrich Engles observed that
British policy had left the Irish feeling like strangers in
their own land47.
When we claimed our own land what identity did we
claim for it?
As Sighle Bhreatnach-Lynch writes, the late nineteenth
and early twentieth century saw a politicisation of
the representation of Ireland. As the nation was going
about forming itself - and claiming Ireland as an entity
different from the United Kingdom - writers and artists
were encouraged (and sometimes commissioned) by
the Gaelic League to show Ireland as feminine and rural,
someone to fight for, someone impoverished with a
broken heart but who loved her sons.48 Implicit in the
rural image was an idea of self-sustainability; the rural
household grew its own food, made its own clothes.
From the beginning of the state there was an idea that
craft, particularly home craft, was an Irish attribute49,
that made its citizens distinctively Irish (and not reliant
on external forces).
As both Fintan O’Toole50 and Luke Gibbons51 point
out, the rural self image was a metropolitan myth
constructed by urban-based politicians, intellectuals and

47. Ibid.
48.
Sighle
Bhreathnach-Lynch
Landscape, space and gender: their role
in the construction of female identity
in newly-independent Ireland 1997
49. Last year journalist and academic
Declan Kirby wrote in the Irish times
that ‘we should reimagine the past, if
only so that we can remember a future’,
he called for a ‘return to the values
of craftsmanship, community and
creativity’ that we were once known
for When Ireland became a Free
State (1922) there was an emphases
on asserting our individual language
of design. In 1951 the national arts
council was established and under its
remit it ‘sought to generate awareness
of design.’ (John Turpin The Irish
Design Reform Movement of the 1960s).
Two significant international craft
expo were held in Ireland and through
these ties were made with Scandinavia.
In 1961 a report was published by a
group of designers. This report lead to
the establishment of industrial design
studies in the National College of Art
and Design and the Kilkenny Design
Workshops. Ireland had to become a
contender on an international market.
A small community of crafts people
worked together to make a real impact
on the world of craft, particularly in
furniture design and textiles.
2011 was declared Irelands year of
craft. The National Crafts Council took
it upson themselves to use the year to

showcase what Irish craft has become
in the twenty first Century. The works
produced brought into question what
defines craft (as opposed to technology
or art). The discussion that immerged
echoes the above comments from
Declan Kirby in terms of creativity and
community as well as a respect for the
past. Richer than that is a sensibility
of the dynamics of contemporary life
where technology is integral to the
making manipulation of things. My
project aims to sit within this discourse,
of creativity and community but with
contemporary dynamics.
50. Fintan O Toole ‘Going west: the
country versus the city in Irish writing’,
The crane bag, vol 9:2, 111-116
51. Luke Gibbons ‘Transformations in
Irish Culture’, Cork 1996

nostalgic emigrants at the turn of the century. This myth
would feed into the emergent culture of Irish nationalism
and eventually be to the fore in the Free State52. This
pastoral myth of the land proved to have a very powerful
grip not only on the Irish national self image, but also on
what was termed the, ‘global discursive construction of
Ireland as a pastoral site of origin.’53
When we made our old currency (the punt) Lady Lavery
was the watermark, the purveyor of honesty54. Bearing
in mind that Lady Lavery was a very well to do lady, what
was she doing dressed like peasant?55 Clearly there is a
link between this representation of Lady Laverty and the
representation of Ireland; a beautiful lady with a broken
heart. Ireland was reframed as female and distinctly rural
and private.
The new 1937 Constitution made it clear that a woman’s
place was in the home. Article 41, section 2 stated
the State recognizes that by her life within the
home, woman gives to the State a support without
which the common good cannot be achieved.56
The image of the peasant woman in her rural habitat as
painted by Keating, Lamb, and others provided a suitable
iconography for this “domestically” enshrined woman.57
J.M. Synge’s description of the rural Irish woman in
The Playboy of the Western World from 1907 was seen

to counter this representation. Synge describes his
female lead, Pegeen Mike, as “a girl you’d see itching
and scratching, and she with a stale stink of poteen
on her from selling in the shop”58 This combined with
the perceived slight on the virtue of Irish womanhood
in the line “... a drift of chosen females, standing in
their shift ...”59 provoked riots on opening night in the
Abbey theatre Dublin, in 1907. The crowd accepted the
inherent violence of Christy Mahon claiming to have
killed his father, in fact he is the hero, but to slight the
virtue of Irish womanhood was not acceptable
What was being drawn and written or urban Ireland?
Who would tell the story of the Irish Urbanite? It could
be said that urban Ireland is part of a dissident heritage.
At the time of the formation of state the urban was seen
as British and bad. Many stories have been forgotten.
Mary Makebelieve, the lead character in James Stephens
early twentieth century novella The Charwoman’s
Daughter, is an interesting character that lived in Dublin
with her mother and really inhabited the city. Although
Mary is a fiction and lived in the realm of make-believe
she lived in a very real Dublin. She walked the streets,
fed the ducks in the park, worried about her dresses and
imagined how she would look to those she passed60.
She was everything I think of when I imagine urban life,
public life. Her story is almost forgotten, her Dublin61,
indeed her Ireland, is not regarded and not rated nearly
as highly as that painted by Paul Henry.

What we learn from Mary Makebelieve, is that there can
be a duality in the identity and image of Ireland. In fact
there needs to be a duality to form a rich and deeper
understanding of this place. And how do we imagine this
duality in Irish identity? What is its aesthetic?
Irelantais is a series of collage images by artist Sean
Hillen that contrast the rural idyllic images of Ireland
(particularly the 1960s postcards by John Hinde) with the
issues of contemporary Ireland such as global warming
and our evolving relationship with the catholic church,
As Fintan O Toole writes in his introduction to a book
about Hillen’s work;
Behind the exuberance of these images, there
is poise, wit and a real artistic engagement
with what it is like to live at the end of the 20th
century. Irelantis is, of course, contemporary,
globalised Ireland, a society that became postmodern before it ever quite managed to be
modern, a cultural space that has gone, in the
blink of an eye, from being defiantly closed to
being completely porous to whatever dream is
floating out there in the media ether.62
Hillen’s collages, as well as the literature discussed are
freer from the economic system than architecture.
Significantly more money is needed to make a building
that to make a play or painting. This should not bind
us to some status quo, architects too need to critique
society and make work is informed by this critical
thinking.

52. The Irish Free State was the official
name for Ireland between 1922-1937 as
negotiated under the 1922 Anglo-Irish
treaty. In 1937 Ireland was declared a
Republic.
53. Grene l999 cited in “Ireland,
Nostalgia and Globalization: Brian
Friel’s Dancing at Lughnasa on Stage
and Screen”, Mireia Aragay 2002

61. contemporary to Bloom’s Dublin
described in Ulysses but much simpler
and without the internal landscapes of
Stephen, Molly, Bloom and others.
62. Fintan O Toole on Irelantais http://
www.irelantis.com/fintanotoole.html
written in 2000 accessed Oct 30

54. The watermark determined the
authenticity of the note
55.Her dress characterizes her as
Cathleen ni Houlihan a mythical symbol
and emblem of Irish nationalism most
famously used by William Butler Yeats
and Lady Augusta Gregory in their play
Cathleen Ní Houlihan.
Catlin Ni Houlihan wikipedia accessed
Oct 30 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
Kathleen_Ni_Houlihan
56. Bunracht Na Heireann1937
57.
Sighle
Bhreathnach-Lynch
Landscape, space and gender: their role
in the construction of female identity
in newly-independent Ireland 1997
58. J. M. Synge The Playboy of the
Western World
59. Ibid.
60. James Stephens The Charwoman’s
Daughter (MacMillen Company Dublin
1925) p33

Site; Limerick and the pure form of
power.
I sympathise with those who would minimize, rather than
those who would maximise economic entanglements among
nations. Ideas, knowledge, science, hospitality, travel – those
are things that of their nature should be international. But let
goods be homespun wherever it is reasonable and conveniently
possible, and above all let finance be primarily national.

John Maynard Keynes,
On National Self-Sufficiency 1933

Knowing that we need a new society, knowing that we
need a new vision for Ireland, I bring my thoughts to
making architecture in a particular place in Ireland. The
particular place I am concerned with is Limerick City
In Limerick the first signs of political change have been
muted in the amalgamation of two local authorities,
Limerick City and Limerick County. This is a first step in
what I hope is a massive change in how we organise our
local politics. Although my vision for local authorities
extends much farther than the erasing of one line
between neighbours, the immanent political change has
opened up a conversation about what the new entity
could be.

Above all else I want to see a society where active
political engagement at a local level (which in turn
informs debate at a regional and national level) is to the
core of the system of governance. This is the same as the
vision outlined in the New Economics Foundation “Great
Transition”, which describes how society can change
to meet the problems of peak oil and climate change.
Although the imminent doom of global warming is a
vastly important concern, I am more interested in the
social policy that is discussed throughout the document.
Key to the future society is the idea that
the state should be seen as ‘us’ and not ‘them’ and
as a domain where we come together to achieve
those things that are best done collectively63.
Decisions are best taken at as local as scale as possible64.
Local government needs to do more (with less) for
those it serves. This is only possible where citizens feel
that they are able to participate fully in the process
that make and implement decisions. Making the right
choice the easy choice for everyone requires systematic
change to redistribute power and resources across
the population.65 The architecture that houses local
government has to change accordingly. Any notion
of institution has to be subverted to allow for a more
free engagement with the system by every member
of society. This does not have to mean more expense

and less efficiency. By working in equal partnership
with those they are supposed to serve, public services
can dramatically increase their resource base, radically
transform the way they operate, and achieve better
results for the people they serve.
Every citizen needs to feel that their voice will be
heard, this must be reflected in the architecture of the
new institution. Deliberative forums can offer citizens
the opportunity to become active participants in –
co-producers of – government, rather than passive
recipients.66
According to the social journalist Jurgen Habermas67, in
a deliberative democracy, a heterogeneous collection
of citizens with diverse opinions come together in the
‘public sphere’ to engage in a structured debate, to
reach considered judgements about an issue of common
good. Deliberative forums would provide opportunities
for interested citizens to discuss local issues, from
transport to housing, to healthcare and help steer local
government.
As interesting as it is to imagine the architecture of this
deliberative forum, the ambition of my project is to make
the space of action. I imagine more than a utopian ideal
of mass democracy, but also space for smaller gropus,
space for those organised and efficient; the space where
politicians are lobbied and informed about issues; the

space were citizens pay their taxes and engage with
where that money goes.

63. New Economics Foundation “The
Great Transition” October 2009 p6.
accessed Dec 20 http://neweconomics.
org/publications/great-transition
64. This is enshrined in the principle
of the European Union with regard to
political to political participation and
decision

Above all what matters is how much power people feel
they have to shape the places where they live and to
alter or conserve them to suit themselves and each
other.

65. New Economics Foundation “The
Great Transition” October 2009 p51.
accessed Dec 20 http://neweconomics.
org/publications/great-transition
66. Ibid., 58
67. In his 1962 work Structural
Transformations Jurgen Habermas
discusses the public sphere, particularly
how it shifts from being the centre of
rational-critical debate, embedded
within the constitution and within
society, to being a debased version of
its former self. Habermas believes this
shift is dictated solely by structures of
debate changing in form and function.
The structures he refers to are social,
economic and political. The division
between public and private is a key
structure that changes. Habermas does
not talk of a physical space, his sphere
ranges from institution to coffee house
to media. My design project aims to
make the public sphere physical.

Appendix: Textiles and Architecture
This section aims to elaborate on the ideas touched on
in the essay about the relationship between textiles and
architecture. Process work, sifting through ideas about
that relationship are also included here.

It is important to get to the root of what it is I am
referring to when I say textiles. The etymological root
of these words tell a lot about their potential use in
architecture
“Lint or flax.” Lint is derived from the Latin linea, which
originally meant a thread made from flax, linum. These
threads were woven into cloth that we now call linen
and that could be used to line garments by providing an
extra layer of warmth. And if “line” began as a thread
rather than a trace, so did “text” begin as a meshwork
of interwoven threads rather than of inscribed traces.
The verb “to weave,” in Latin, was texere, from which are
derived our words “textile” and—by way of the French
í/síre—”tissue,” meaning a delicately woven fabric
composed of a myriad of interlaced threads.a

Primer Project. September 2011
All thesis students were asked to begin their studies by testing
their thesis ideas in Shannon Town. I took this opportunity to
look at public space as a weave of various factors which combine together to give that space its own particular quality.
The space in question is the carpark of ‘Shannon Town Centre’
also known as the ‘Skycourt Shopping Centre’.
This study coincided with my analysis of Zuccotti Park, site of
Occupy Wall St. Like this space in Shannon, the Park in New
York is privately owned but the its use ignores the simple fact of
ownership.

An interesting etymological relationship is also raised in
Sempers 1860 Style. Semper draws on the tie between
the German words for wall (Wand) an dress (Gewand) to
establish the ‘Principle of Dressing’ as the ‘true essence’
of architecture.
The building is clothing, the purpose of clothing is partly
protective, partly decorative. In his writing on White
Walls and Designer Dresses, Mark Wiegly examines this
distinction under the light of the modernist movement,
particularly the works of Le Corbusier. He reduces Adolf
Loos’ outrage against ornament as flight of fashion.
by the twentieth century the traditional ways of
dressing-up a building had become stale; every
possible way had been disinterred and reinterredb
He acknowledges that Loos can see the fashion for a thin
layer of white stucco to be the direct descendent of the
carpets and tapestrys that Semper describes. Wiegly
goes on to argue that these white walls are every bit as
ornamental as the elaborate patterned surfaces which
preceeded them.

There is a value to Sempers arguments on the division
of space. As I have outlined in the essay, he believes
that building originated with the use of woven fabrics to
define social space, specifically, the space of domesticity.
But the textiles were not simply placed within space
to define a certain interiority. They were not simply
arranged on the landscape to divide off a small space
that could be occupied by a particular family. Rather,
they are the production of space itself, launching the
very idea of occupation.
Weaving was used “as a means to make the ‘home’, the
innerlife separated from the outer life, and as the formal
creation of the idea of space”.c

I have already spoken about the link between textiles, or
more generally craft, and a national identity. Knitting was
also taken on as an identity for political movements. The
1960’s saw resurgence in textile crafting, be it stitching,
weaving or knitting, by feminist artists.
Feminism of the day did not happen in a vacuum, the
1960’s were a time of great flux, not merely in gender
relations but in all aspects of society. Art was turning on
its head
“Replacing the skills of art with the activities of work,
artists began to make art that eschewed artifice and
illusion”d
There was a change in the way that art was being
produced and how art was perceived. On the ventgard
were the likes of Donald Judd and Robert Smithsom who
constantly challenged any notion of genre in art.

A variety of modernist narratives insist that the main
value of the work of art or any creative endeavour lies in
its complete originality. This became a mute point when
then very idea of art was challenged and subverted by
the art scene. Textile art is particularly susceptible to this
question as it is based on a repetitive module, a limited
number of techniques. It is an art form based in craft.e
The human hand fashions works form lifeless matter
according to the same formal principles as nature does
all human art production is therefore at heart nothing
other than a contest with naturef